Eleven
Lottie reached the place Lynch had spotted on the drone video. Suited up, she crouched next to the railway sleepers.
Kirby puffed and huffed beside her. ‘It’s about a hundred metres from where the body was found.’
She viewed the activity in the distance. A small army of SOCOs like white ants were scouring the area from where the body had been removed. She glanced around her. A thick blackberry bush stood out from the nearby hedge. On the opposite side of the tracks there was a wooden stile leading up and over to the wide bank of the canal. Most likely a fishing location, she thought.
‘Maybe the body was transported via the canal,’ Kirby said, ‘and whoever was carrying it exited onto the railway from here. They might have dropped the hand on the way to the main dumping site.’
Lottie scrutinised the location. Kirby was probably right. But where were the rest of the body parts?
‘It’s definitely a hand,’ she said inspecting the frozen flesh without touching it. ‘The entire railway line will have to be fingertip-searched.’
‘The entire line?’ Kirby said. ‘From Sligo to Dublin?’
‘No, I mean from town out to where the torso was found, and then a little way beyond.’
‘Still a lot of manpower.’ He scratched his head. ‘We could just fly a drone over the track.’
Lottie smiled behind her mouth mask. ‘Kirby, that’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard from you in a long time.’
‘Is that a compliment, boss?’
‘You can take it as one. However, it might be better to call in the air support unit, and we still need feet on the ground. Organise it.’
She stood up and glanced at the hedges, bits of paper and plastic caught in the branches. The bank along the tracks was studded with litter too. Probably the same on the canal towpath.
‘I want the surrounding area searched as well. Seems to me that whoever dumped this body was careless; that’s if it wasn’t intentional.’ She pondered her own musings. ‘Perhaps they threw away something that might help us incriminate them. Where’s Lynch?’
‘I’m here.’
Lottie watched as Maria Lynch struggled with the zipper on her protective suit.
‘It’s stuck. And don’t mention baby weight, because I haven’t got any.’
‘You’re looking great, Maria, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Can’t say the same for Kirby. What’s up with him?’ She watched as the burly detective mooched off to one side, fiddling with his phone.
‘What’s not up with him?’ Eventually Lynch’s zipper shot into place.
‘Good work discovering the hand. If you hadn’t, the wildlife would have had a feast.’ Lottie noticed two members of the SOCO team making their way towards them.
Lynch was bending over the hand, staring at it. ‘It looks like it was wrapped in plastic. Do you think it is part of the torso?’
‘I hope so, otherwise we’ll be dealing with two bodies.’ Lottie crouched down beside Lynch. ‘We have the torso and one hand. I’d like to know where the rest of the body is.’
‘If we have one hand, the other should be around. Who in their right mind would drop one hand?’ Lynch said earnestly.
‘It may have been dropped by accident. We’re not dealing with someone in their right mind,’ Lottie pointed out.
McGlynn arrived beside them. ‘You’re interfering with my crime scene as usual, Detective Inspector Parker.’
‘Looking, not touching. I’m learning,’ Lottie said.
‘Good,’ he said grudgingly. ‘How is young Boyd?’
‘Boyd is doing fine, thanks.’ Lottie grinned at the older man with his inquisitive green eyes. He was like a thorny bush; in among the thorns there had to be some roses, though so far she had been unable to find them.
‘Dear Lord, I’ll soon have the two of you stamping all over my crime scenes again. God give me patience. Now out of my way until I see what we have here.’
‘Will I be able to get fingerprints from the hand?’ Lottie asked.
‘You won’t but I might. I’ll let you know when I know.’
‘Jim, is the body really that of a child?’
‘I think so.’
She left the SOCOs to their forensic work, and she and Lynch walked over to Kirby.
‘We need to scrutinise all our missing persons files,’ she said. ‘Even though we only have parts of a body, this was a human being, a child, and someone out there is missing a loved one.’
Twelve
Faye watched Jeff drive off. She dropped the rancid curtain and looked around. He still refused to tell her where he’d put the skull, saying she needn’t worry her head over it. He’s missing the pun, she thought wryly.
It had to be somewhere in the house.
In the kitchen, she went through the trash can. She searched every cupboard, swatting away flies and spiders, unafraid but careful all the same. If she saw one pebble of mouse dirt, she was out of there.
They’d have to dump the crockery at some stage, she mused as she moved cups and plates around, and the stained cutlery would have to go too. All the mouldy foodstuff had been chucked out ages ago, for fear of inviting in rodents. Faye shivered. She wasn’t afraid of much, but they were one thing she would run a mile from.
The chest-high refrigerator hummed as she opened the door. The light spilled into the kitchen, illuminating the laminate cupboard doors. Frost and ice clung to the bottom of the ice box and its drawer looked frozen solid. She tugged at it but it wouldn’t budge, so it was logical to assume Jeff hadn’t put the skull in there. She glanced around the kitchen. She couldn’t wait to demolish it. Garish colours and dirt and grime. They would need another skip once they got started. Excitement built in her chest as she envisaged what the house would look like once it was renovated.
Jeff hadn’t brought the skull with him when they’d left for coffee, so where could he have put it? She recalled he’d used the toilet. She climbed the stairs slowly. This was the part of the house she hated the most. It gave her a ghoulish feeling right between her shoulder blades. On the landing, she paused and listened. Her heart was drumming in her chest and the baby was fluttering away innocently. All four doors were slightly ajar. Three bedrooms and a bathroom. She reached out a finger and pushed at the bathroom door.
A tap dripped in the bath, leaving a brown copper trail to the plughole. The ironwork was corroded, and a cracked rubber hose was still stuck to one tap. The shower curtain hung limply, fungus growing up the length of it. The toilet smelled as if it hadn’t been flushed in years, but Jeff had used it, hadn’t he?
With one eye closed, Faye squinted into the toilet bowl. The water was clear. She flushed it anyway. Mistake. The pipes in the attic groaned and rattled as the water filtered noisily from the tank to the cistern. She felt as if the entire room was shaking as much as she was. Edging out backwards, she pulled the door shut.
They’d agreed that the box room would be for the baby and they would use the biggest room because it looked out over the road at the front of the house. The third bedroom, at the back, had a view of the overgrown garden for which they had zero budget.